So, if anyone saw a previous post -I discovered about 10 days ago that one of my electric yellow's was carrying eggs. Well, everything was going well for a while but then I noticed yesterday that she had blood (at least it seemed like blood) around her gills. She looked pretty beat up all of sudden and it seems that the male yellow was starting to go after her. I came home today and she was dead, and pretty much eaten up. I had no intention of raising fry and many of you commented, as well as my LFS, that nature would take it's course and the fry would probably not survive. Anyway....my point in all this is...obviously I removed the dead fish, but is there anything else I should do? PWC? I tested the ammonia, and it's fine.

Aw, that's too bad about the female. Was there more than one female for that male? They usually do better if there are multiple females to take the pressure off of the one, but having said that, these things still happen from time to time. Back when I used to keep fry, I would usually remove the holding female and put her in a 10 gallon until she spit. Even this had risks with reintroducing her to the tank.

If you've been keeping up with regular water changes, there's probably no need to worry about one dead fish that you removed promptly.

Unfortunately, there was only one male and one female. Hard to sex early on....they both looked identical. I guess my question now becomes...why did it happen? Was it because there was only one female, do I not have enough hiding spots, or am I overstocked? My LFS is an incredible resource and have never led me astray to make a sale. I definitely trust them. Unfotunately, if you dig too much on the internet...you read million different things. A decent amount of people out there say you shouldn't even attempt to have cichlids in a 36 gallon tank. If I could do it again, I would have bought a 72 gallon. Well...I would have asked for one I mean...this was a Christmas gift. But other than typical start-up issues...I've never had a problem.

Kenyi, Cobalt Blue, Johanni, OB (Metriaclima), OB Peacock, Rusty Zebra, Red Empress, Synodontis, and then the male Electric. So, it was a total of 10. They are all still small, with the biggest being the Kenyi at close to 3 inches. I know that some of them will get too big for the tank and I will sell them back. Unless, of course, I go buy the 72gal. I figure at the moment I am well within the "inch per gallon" rule. I am worried about my male/female ratio at this point, though. Not knowing what the Synodontis is....if my Empress turns out to be male...I'll have a 5/3 male/female ratio.

The "inch per gallon" rule does not apply to Cichlids. There are only a few cichlids that I would recommend for a 36 gallon and recommend is probably too strong a word. Of the cuurent crew the yellow lab, rusty and maybe the OB peacock. Get the bigger tank or swap out fish.

Make sure that you have plenty of hiding places, as well as plenty of swimming space - I guess a larger tank is in order. I have kept Kenyi, Aurutas, and Crabro in a 40gal until they got to be about 3-4 inches, and had to purge some of them out. Now they are in a 55gal. Unfortunately, the more aggressive species are also the most plentiful at "Big Chain Pet Stores'.

LIsten to Iceblue, I wish i did. Kenyi are very aggressive, and at one point, I had 7 of them. The dominant one took over 2/3 of the tank for himself, but the others 'listened' to him because he broke up all of the others when they fought, and was a true 'boss' in the tank (until the Crabro just got too big for him to dominate - 6 inches now and growing!). I ended up trading 4 of the Kenyi (I seperated the 3 that I kept to one male per tank and they are doing just fine).

One thing I found from observation is - the aggressive guys will mellow out if they aren't the largest in the tank, and will get VERY aggressive if they are (just my observation, no science to back up my claim). I have a tank with 4 Zebras, 1 Johanni, 1 Venustus, 1 OB BB peacock, 1 Fryeri, 1 Yellow Tail Acei, and 1 Thick Skin in it (all males but one Zebra - by accident) and they keep the lone male Kenyi in check. I also have a bunch ceramic jars and tunnel rocks in there to provide them with PLENTY of hiding places - 3 per fish. There is even a breeding pair of zebras in there and everyone leaves them alone (as far as I can tell) as they are the largest ones in there... I'm just kinda overwhelmed with fry!

Fish, like people, have different personalities, and observation will let you know who the bullies are. Males will fight other males in order to breed, and when they want to breed, they need a harem or the single female will just get worn out.